


*panic*

by TalkShippingtoMe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Homecoming Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkShippingtoMe/pseuds/TalkShippingtoMe
Summary: Peter has a panic attack at school.The working title was Peter Panics at the disco
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 94
Collections: Irondad Fic Exchange 2020





	*panic*

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neptuneslight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptuneslight/gifts).



> Peter dealing with Trauma
> 
> Ok so the past few weeks have been hectic, so I wasn't able to give this 110% of the love it deserves, but I really liked these prompts so I didn't want to drop! 
> 
> I'm also posting from a tablet, so I'm sorry if there's any weird formatting

Its cold. It's so, so cold. His face presses against the hard ground, rock and glass and wire and metal all scraping along his cheek as he struggles. He is disoriented, unsure of how he got here, a fact proving to make him panic even more. It's dark. There is water coming from somewhere, coating his entire underside, from his legs to his chest to his cheek. The warm blood from his scrapes and his seemingly unending tears mix with the cold water on his face, and for one fleeting moment he is grateful for the heat. 

He tries to push himself up, palms digging through the same debris stuck to his face, filling his lungs, and only then is he aware of the crushing weight on his entire body. 

When he screams, and he screams, though his voice is not loud, it is distorted from pain and tears. He is unable to call out for long; the combination of lack of air and what feels like glass down his throat making everything so much worse. Objectively, he knows he isn't loud enough, he needs to try again, but the very thought of calling into the dark once more sends his panic into overdrive, the flood of dread and fear far more crushing than the building around him. His own breathing sounds like gunshots in his ears, ragged, shallow breaths echoing off of shattered concrete. 

No one is coming to save him, and he can't save himself. 

It is dark, he is cold and wet and in pain, and he is alone. 

The rubble shifts and it all comes crashing down--

Peter Parker wakes with a strangled gasp, his entire body drenched in sweat. His hands are shaking, and he presses them to his eyes, but they do nothing to ease the burning pressure of tears. 

He tries his best to take deep breaths, because he can't wake May. He can't. She's been working so hard, as always, but the last few weeks have been filled with extra shifts and overtime. Today, she has a meeting with her boss. She had been stressed since she found out about the meeting, all of the nurses had, but she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. 

The new found oxygen in his lungs helps to slow his heart rate, and the freedom of breathing as deeply as he can makes him dizzy with relief. 

You are Spiderman. You have the suit back. You made it out. 

The words echo through his head with practiced ease, and when they do little to comfort him, he whispers them to the empty room. Still, they do little. Removing his hands from his eyes, he rolls over and pulls his phone from the desk, checking the time, still not quite breathing normally, but getting there. 

4:47

The screen blinds him for a moment, but when the bold white letters come back into full focus, he grimaces. He doesn't have to wake up until six, but he knows going back to sleep won't work. He's lucky, he supposes, he almost got four hours of sleep tonight, and that's better than most. Especially in this last few months. The months since the vulture and the fight and the building-- and no, he wasn't doing this again right now. 

He considers going for a short patrol, but the thought of wearing the suit right now makes his skin itch. He can still feel the grime of the building on his skin, even though he knows he has long since been clean from it. He can't shower, anyway. It would wake May. 

His feet touch the cold floor when he sits up. Resting his elbows on his knees, still shaking hands clasped firmly between them, he attempts to control his breathing again. He bows his head and shuts his eyes, willing his mind to go blank. He does this until his alarm goes off, six A.M on the dot, signalling he can move about without raising suspicion. It felt like minutes. 

He is out the door by 6:17, opting to skip breakfast for a three minute shower, leaving a hastily scrawled note for May saying he had to be to school early to talk to a teacher. He feels bad for lying, but he can't stand the thought of looking her in the eyes this morning and saying he slept well, that everything was fine. Because it wasn't, and he couldn't even begin to tell her why. 

He'd be fine by the time he got home. He always was. 

~~~

The trip on the subway is particularly miserable, having forgotten his headphones at home. Even though he left early, his train was delayed enough to be right around the time he would normally be getting on. while he was never an extravert by any means, he was always comfortable around people, able to share space and air without any worries. Now, the people around him are smothering, sitting and standing too close, breathing and talking and it's a lot to handle. His heightened senses don't help one bit, and he finds himself wondering: what would happen if the ventilation system stopped working, or one of the tunnels callapsed on top of the train. Is the train strong enough to prevent the collapsed weight from breaking through and crushing everyone, being alive and trapped, the only supplies they had being what was already on the train? Or would it simply cave in, crushing everything? Would people even know that something went wrong, or would they be trapped for hours before anyone even thought to look. What if-- 

Peter is suddenly, desperately, in need of a distraction.

All his work is finished, and the only book he has in his bag and not in his locker or on his desk at home is the new book for English, some classic, that he has strict instructions not to start reading until class today.

He pulls the book out and turns to the first page. 

~~~ 

His stomach is grumbling by the time he makes it to school. 

The sun is fully risen and while he is still exhausted, seeing Ned on the front steps brings a smile to his face. When he steps up next to him, Ned's smile falters, but is quickly back up again as he goes for casual. 

"Hey man, how are you this morning?" The tone of his voice shows he knows he isn't well, Peter probably looks like the death warmed over, between the bags under his eyes (which, with his luck, are still a little puffy) and the hunched in stance, screaming exhaustion and anxiety.

He really only asks to test the waters, though, because Ned, amazing friend that he is, can usually tell when and when not to push. When Peter pulls a somewhat sad and tired smile, mumbling about how he didn't sleep well last night, but really he's fine, nothing to talk about, Ned knows now is not the time. Peter's eyes are grateful when he switches subjects, but Ned doesn't watch them long enough to notice when he goes on about the new lego set he's trying to get. 

The time before class is peaceful, and his morning goes by in a hungry blur. When lunch rolls around, he is absolutely starved and quite frankly a bit cranky. Peter knows it's his own fault, he should have made toast before he left or snagged an extra granola bar from Ned. But he didn't, because any minute May could have come out, ready to leave for work, and while Ned would have given him a granola bar and more, he didn't want to explain why he didn't get breakfast.

So it's a huge relief, when Peter is able to get through the lunch line and to his normal table with Ned with only a passing "Hey Penis," and brush of shoulders with Flash before he can eat. 

The talk is small, even when MJ joined them for all of ten minutes before going to the library. The school meal, while normally enough to keep him just barely satisfied, feels extremely small when met with his empty stomach. It will have to do. 

~~~

Peter sits in his English class, rereading the beginning of the assigned book. His seat is in the second row, all the way to the left by the windows. They are open, and the sunny day outside sends him a mostly warm breeze. It's a rare nice day, seeing as it's more than half way through October, and the sun and wind feels nice on his skin. 

Aside from the good view, Peter appreciates the seat because it's right in front of the teachers desk, and Flash, who unfortunately shares this class, is about three rows and four seats away from him. The added space and proximity to the teachers desk keeps taunting to a minimum, though it doesn't stop it completely. He's had to suffer quite a few spitballs since the beginning of the year, and even though he can tell when they are coming, he doesn't want to raise suspicion by dodging them. 

For now, his Spidey Sense is quiet, the weather is pleasant, and even though he has already read this part of the book, the overall calm of the room sets him at ease. 

Then, he hears the roar of an engine, and all the warning bells go off. Looking up from the boring book, he pears through the window and sees something in the distance, a helicopter, the rational side of his brain provides. The rest of his brain is not nearly as calm, latching on to the sound of the engine getting closer, seeing it looming above him in the distance. 

With every moment it spends getting closer to the building, the rumble of the small aircraft gets louder and louder in his advanced ears. His breathing is picking up, but he is too focused on the noise, and the looming figure in the sky and the fact that he is in a very small room without his suit and it's just getting closer and closer and--

The sound of his chair scraping against the floor is almost as loud as the helicopter, and before he can even process the confused look on his teachers face, along with the rest of the class (except flash, whos face is confused but overlapped with annoyance), he is out of the room, rushing down the hall and in the bathroom. There, his knees finally buckle as he gasps for breath, feeling the weight of the building all over again. 

He slides down the wall, knees to his chest as he tries to breath. It isn't working. Fumbling for his phone, he calls May, but it is sent immediately to voicemail mail. Right. The meeting. Still struggling to breath, tears gathering in his eyes, he runs through his options as calmly as he can, which isn't very calm, but he will take what he can get. 

May can't come to the phone, most likely turned off for the rest of the afternoon.

Ned is in his robotics class, and he keeps his phone on silent for school. 

He doesn't have MJs number, and he isn't sure if he's close enough to trust her with a panic attack yet. 

He has four phone numbers in his phone, aside from random people he's been paired with for projects. Reading past Ned and May, He sees Ben's name, which does not help at all, and he sees Happy. 

He presses call without further thought. It picks up on the third ring. 

"Peter, it's the middle of the day, shouldn't you be at school--"

Happy is cut off by Peter's wheeze. "Can't breathe."

The line is quiet as he processes those words, then, panicked-but-trying-to-sound-calm Happy speaks in a rush of breath. 

"Jesus, ok this is fine, you're ok, ok, uh take deep breaths and uh," The words are muffled as he speaks to someone else. He thinks he makes out a rushed I don't know what to do, but he isn't really focusing on that right now. A new voice on the line. 

"Kid, I'm going to need you to count your breaths with me, ok? Ready. In through the nose, that's it, now hold it, one, two, three, exhale, one, two, three," the voice continues to count out for the next few minutes, steady and even and oddly calming. When Peter is breathing normally, the same voice switches from counting and small reassurances to talk to the other person in the room, supposedly still Happy, but he doesn't try to listen in, opting to continue breathing the way the person showed him. Then, back into the phone, the vaguely familiar voice asks "Are you good now?" 

He nods, and then upon realising they can't see, says, "Yeah," and after clearing his throat continues with "Yeah, I'm good now." 

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Mystery Man probes further. "Peter, why didn't you call May?"

Peter ignores the curiosity as to how this person knows who he is, let alone his aunt. "I did. Phones off." He knows he will probably feel bad for being so rude, but right now he's just so tired, his head hurts and his throat is sore. 

"Ok. Ok, I take it that means she can't come pick you up right now?" 

"No, probably not. But I'm fine now," his voice cracks and he hates it. He tries to clear his throat again, which does little to help his voice or his head. "I don't need to leave. I can probably make it back to my class if I hurry--" 

"Nuh-uh. Not happening bud. Look, me and Happy are going to come pick you up. I'll handle everything. You are going to go to the nurse and get some water and wait for us. Capiche?"

Peter is quiet for a moment before relenting with yet another "Yeah." Happy has picked him up before, not often though, really only once, and never by signing him out of school in the middle of the day, but he's sure May would be fine with it. The school… they said they would handle it. 

He's just so tired


End file.
